The Yamas & Niyamas: Exploring Yoga's Ethical Practice Book

I am not a reader of what many would call "self help" books. And many out there would probably classify this book as just that. But this book is more than that. It is immensely readable and relatable. The author writes with a conversational tone that makes her words all the more powerful. What it does is explore the five yamas and the five niyamas that make up the foundation of yoga's ethical practice. What exactly does that mean? Before I explain, let me back up a bit. Give you all a little background.


Six months ago, the love of my life died from a prescription drug overdose.


And I'm not writing this for sympathy or pity or to make some sort of point about pushing through and overcoming obstacles. Because even six months later I don't feel strong. And I still am overcome with tremendous, almost palpable, waves of grief that I cannot control or escape from. Losing someone you love, someone you wanted to build a future with, suddenly and without any kind of warning is something that I would not wish on my greatest enemy. And in a single moment, the life I had been living switched gears. And I struggled for so long with that loss of control, the completely irrational thoughts that had taken over my life, and those feelings of guilt, grief, and madness that threatened to break me down every day. I never thought that breathing could be such a difficult thing some days. I tried so many things. Exercise, music, booze, meditation. Nothing worked. Even before this tragedy occurred, the practice of yoga was a central practice in my life. I am such a believer in the power of yoga for so many things. Mental health issues, physical health issues, balance, stress, you name it. Yoga was always my center, my breath of fresh air. I felt physically and mentally so much more sound after every session. Until Kyle died. And then, when those fears and feelings took over, I cut yoga out of my life. It was part of my body's reaction to the event. And it was during that first month that I totally melted down. That's when my yoga instructor, mentor, and dear friend gave me this book. And this book got me through that horrible horrible dark place. It brought to light why yoga was and still is such a crucial practice in my life. Why it makes me feel lighter mentally and better physically. Because yoga is so much more than exercise. Much more than the stretches and asanas we practice. Yoga is a state of being. A state of awareness that we are a part of something much bigger than we are. Something we can not always understand. And this book helped me realize that by adjusting my thought processes to a broader view, the less hard I try to figure out what is happening around me. And by not trying so hard, the more I actually understand. And only we have the power to change our circumstances and our attitudes. And sometimes by changing the way we think, we have the powers to dig ourselves of whatever black hole has decided to suck us in.

And so now to the book.
The yamas make up the core of the practice of yoga. They are (for lack of a better term) rules for life. They are standards by which every practitioner of yoga strives for in their journey. They are Ahimsa (nonviolence), Satya (truthfulness), Asteya (nonstealing), Bhramacharya (nonexcess), and Aparigraha (nonpossessiveness). The niyamas are kind of their counterparts. Instead of being rules of life, they are the rules of living, or the ways in which each of us achieves the five yamas. They are comprised of Saucha (purity), Santosha (contentment), Tapas (self-discipline), Swadhyaya (self-study), and Ishvarapranidhana (surrender).

Ok, so what the fuck does that mean?

It means that in order to live in complete balance, one must never embody any type of violence, live totally in truth, never take what isn't theirs to take, never have more than what they need, and never be attached to anything outside of the self. And in order to achieve those things, they must cleanse themselves and live a pure life, be content with what they have, engage in self-discipline and self-study, and surrender themselves to the higher powers of the universe.

Easy peasy lemon squeezy.


And I know that all that above sounds preachy and self-righteous and hipster, but I swear it isn't. This book created an awareness that there are things in this world that I don't understand. And can't control. And the quicker I realize that, the happier and more content I will be. We are only given so much time on this earth, and it is up to us how we use that time that we are given. My instructor who gave the book to me explained that each person who practices yoga usually has a specific yama that speaks more to them than others do. And for her, it is the practice of Ahimsa, or nonviolence. And for me, it is Satya, or truthfulness. And so those are the two I am going to focus on.

Ahimsa and Satya are Sanskrit words. And therefore the English translation isn't exactly what it appears to be.


For those who haven't seen that movie, the Sanskrit word for war actually is translated as "a desire for more cows."

Nonviolence doesn't just refer to abstaining from kicking your brother in the shin, or shooting up a convenience store. It goes a little further than that. It is the practice of never using the self as a vehicle to cause harm to other being, including the self. It is an awareness of our words, actions, and their consequences. It involves an effort never to harm others, but also that you do not cause harm to yourself for the sake of others. It is basically living in harmony with others who share this planet. Obviously this is not at all possible to accomplish all the time or else we would live in fear of stepping outside our houses and accidentally stepping on a flea. However, consciously knowing that things we say or do always have consequences allow us to think before speaking, or refrain from reacting out of anger or hurt or jealousy. Because when we deliberately set out to hurt others, we almost always end up hurting ourselves, either because we've acted out of emotion and hurt people we care about, or because we set off a chain reaction that will always lead back to ourselves. By observing and practicing Ahimsa in our daily lives, it allows us to focus on looking forward and removing anything that may cause us to act out in the first place. It is, in essence, the practice of "letting go." Ridding ourselves of toxic factors before they cause us to hurt or be hurt.

Satya is something that I always try to be conscious of. Again, truthfulness is more than just telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. It is the practice of being true to ourselves. Never pretending to be anything more or less than what we are. The author argues that the opposite of Satya is the practice of "being nice." Because usually being nice means telling half-truth to avoid hurting someone's feelings or being fake. Honesty can sometimes be a hard thing to live up to. I know it has caused me to lose friends, but my point is that if you lose friends because of telling the truth, then they were those "toxic factors" I talked about with nonviolence. That actually living in truth helps us also in our quest for nonviolence. When I read this book, especially with the mindset of what I was dealing with, Satya rang the loudest in my head. Because I was hurting. I was sad. I was a total mess. And that is exactly how I was feeling and that is who I was at the time. So when people would ask me how I was and I responded "I'm fine," I was hurting and commiting violence against myself by not telling the truth and pretending to be something other than what I was.

I could spend pages and pages and pages of text talking about all the other yamas and niyamas of yoga. Because they are all important, and I really took something away from all of them. But these two are the ones that hit me the hardest and made me pay attention. I urge everyone to find the wisdom in these words, even if you have to trudge through all my ramblings to get there. It is perfectly ok to not be ok, but for some reason, we humans are conditioned to think that we have to be strong and perfect, and "ok" all the time. Not being ok does not make you weak, it makes you human. And I can share with you all that I am still not "ok." I struggle every day with being human and having emotions and grief and messed up reactions to things. The practice of Satya helps me with my understanding of positive and negative energies and helps me understand some things that are bigger than I am. And staying grounded in who I am, despite not being "ok" is actually what helped me initially climb my way out of the dark hole I fell into. When I stopped pretending to be holding it together, I actually started holding it together for real. And that is something I learned from reading this book. I highly recommend it even for people who don't actually practice yoga or know anything about it (though I highly recommend that you try it). It has influenced the way I feel about the world we live in and the people we share this space with. The powers of the universe, and things that are greater than we are capable of understanding. And though I may never quite understand why things happen the way they do or why horrible things happen to good people, I do understand that everything in life has its purpose, and the more we stop trying to control it and let go, the more we end up taking from it. The journey is what you make of it, even if it veers off course from time to time.